The present invention relates to a laundry washing machine.
In particular, the present invention relates to a front-loading home laundry washing machine, to which the following description refers purely by way of example without this implying any loss of generality.
As is known, currently marketed front-loading home laundry washing machines generally comprise: a substantially parallelepiped-shaped outer boxlike casing structured for resting on the floor; a substantially bell-shaped washing tub which is suspended in floating manner inside the casing, directly facing a laundry loading/unloading through opening realized in the front wall of the casing; a substantially cylindrical, elastically-deformable bellows which connects the front opening of the washing tub to the laundry loading/unloading opening formed in the front wall of the casing; a porthole door which is hinged to the front wall of the casing to rotate to and from a closing position in which the door closes the laundry loading/unloading opening in the front wall of the casing for watertight sealing the washing tub; a substantially cylindrical, bell-shaped rotatable drum structured for housing the laundry to be washed, and which is fitted inside the washing tub with its concavity facing the laundry loading/unloading opening and is supported in axially rotating manner so as to be able to freely rotate about its substantially horizontally-oriented longitudinal axis; and an electrically-powered motor assembly which is structured for driving into rotation the rotatable drum about its longitudinal axis inside the washing tub.
Alike any other home laundry washing machine, this type of laundry washing machine furthermore comprises: a detergent dispensing assembly which is generally located inside the boxlike casing, immediately above the washing tub, and is structured for selectively feeding into the washing tub, according to the washing cycle manually-selected by the user, a given amount of detergent, softener and/or other washing agent suitably mixed with fresh water arriving from the water mains; a fresh-water supply circuit which is structured for selectively drawing fresh water from the water mains according to the washing cycle manually-selected by the user, and channelling said water to the detergent dispensing assembly or directly to the washing tub; and finally an appliance control panel which is generally located on the front wall of the casing, above the laundry loading/unloading opening, and is structured for allowing the user to manually select the desired washing-cycle.
The detergent dispensing assembly, in turn, generally comprises a detergent drawer which is typically divided into a number of detergent compartments each structured for being manually fillable with an amount of detergent, softener or other washing agent sufficient to perform a single washing cycle, and which is fitted/inserted in manually extractable manner into a completely recessed drawer housing whose entrance is generally located on the upper right or felt corner of the front wall of the casing, above the laundry loading/unloading opening and beside the appliance control panel.
In the recent years, some household appliance producers decided to widen the detergent drawer up to substantially match the overall width of the boxlike casing, and to locate/arrange the appliance control panel on front of the widened detergent drawer.
WO2011/128745 discloses a front-loading home laundry washing machine having a large detergent drawer and the appliance control panel is located on front side of the detergent drawer. A push-pull or push-push mechanism is also incorporated into the household appliance to facilitate the extraction of the detergent drawer.
Unfortunately, the use of a push-pull or push-push mechanism to facilitate the extraction of the detergent drawer is technically inconsistent with the arrangement of the appliance control panel on front of the detergent drawer. A push-pull or push-push mechanism, in fact, requires the detergent drawer to step back a few millimeters inside the drawer housing to activate, whereas the appliance control panel must remain in a stable abutment on, and perfectly coplanar to, the front wall of the casing when the detergent drawer is completely inserted inside the casing, for both aesthetical and operative reasons.
The user, in fact, is usually required to press one or more manually-operated push-buttons on the appliance control panel to power on the household appliance and/or to select the desired washing cycle, and a push-pull or push-push mechanism would cause an undesired, sudden extraction of the detergent drawer at any press of a push-button.